BAGHDAD: The wires protruding from the small, misshapen stuffed animal revealed the deadly booby-trap tucked inside.
For the people of Mosul, the sophisticated bomb was a reminder of how difficult it will be to return to homes littered with hidden explosives by Daesh militants and dotted with the remnants of undetonated bombs dropped by the US-led coalition that still could blow up.
Washington at least is trying to ease a bit of the massive clean-up burden.
On Thursday, the top US commander in Iraq said for the first time that the American military will help contractors and other officials locate unexploded bombs dropped by the coalition. US Embassy officials have asked the coalition to declassify grid coordinates for bombs dropped in Iraq to help clear the explosives.
It may not be that simple, Gen. Stephen Townsend told a small group of reporters, “but we’ll find a way through that.”
“We’ll find a way to help them,” he said.
The coalition’s unexploded bombs are only a small part of Mosul’s problems. The bulk of the explosives have been hidden by Daesh fighters to be triggered by the slightest movement, even picking up a seemingly innocent child’s toy, lifting a vacuum cleaner, or opening an oven door. The effort could continue wreaking destruction on Iraq’s second largest city even as Daesh was defeated after a nine-month battle.
US Embassy officials and contractors hired to root out the hidden explosives use the same words to describe the devastation in western Mosul: Historic. Unprecedented. Exponentially worse than any other place.
“We use broad terms like historic because when you enter a dwelling, everything is suspect,” said the team leader in northern Iraq for Janus Global Operations, a contracting company hired to find and remove hidden explosive devices and unexploded bombs from Iraqi cities recaptured from the Daesh group. “You can’t take anything at face value.”
The team leader asked that he not be identified by name because he and his teams continue working in Mosul and the company fears for their safety.
Some estimates suggest it may take 25 years to clear West Mosul of explosives. The bomb-removing team leader said those understate what is sure to be a long, enduring problem.
Normalcy may return to parts of west Mosul in a year, and perhaps after a decade many of the obvious explosives will be found. But other unexploded bombs and hidden devices will surface at construction sites and other locations for years and likely decades to come, he said.
As much as 90 percent of west Mosul’s old city has been reduced to ruins, destroyed by the Daesh militants who occupied it for nearly three years and by the campaign of airstrikes and ground combat needed to retake the city.
For Muhammed Mustafa, a restaurant owner from west Mosul, the disaster is very personal.
“In the beginning we thanked God we had been liberated from our oppressor,” said Mustafa, 54, who had lived in Mosul’s old city.
Mustafa escaped Daesh territory as Iraqi forces pushed through western Mosul earlier this year and is now living with extended family in the city’s east.
“When my neighborhood was liberated, I wanted to return and gather some belongings. On my street all I saw was destruction, except my home, thank God, but I found a written statement on the wall warning it was bobby-trapped,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “When I saw it, I couldn’t stand. I fell to the ground.”
Security forces in the area barred him from entering due to the risk.
“They said there were many houses like it and many people had already died trying to inspect their homes when a bomb inside exploded,” he said. “Can you imagine, the house I grew up in, now I can no longer enter?“
David Johnson, vice president for the Washington office of Janus Global Operations, said his workers are finding explosives where local residents would be most likely to trigger them, and are “seeing a level of sophistication and a number of improvised explosive devices that is literally without parallel.”
Over time, the officials said, the improvised explosive devices — or IEDs — have become far more innovative and sophisticated. They range from basic pressure plates in the roads or doorways to small devices, similar to ones that turn on a refrigerator light when the door is opened. They’re tucked into dresser drawers or smoke detectors, or buried under large piles of rubble that were pushed aside as Iraqi forces cleared roads to move through the city.
The devastation is so extensive and the danger so high that government and humanitarian agencies have been unable to get a full assessment of the explosives threat or a solid estimate of how much money and effort is needed to make the city safe and livable again.
The team leader painted a grim picture of the city where his workers have spent the last two weeks trying to clear explosives from critical infrastructure, including the electric grid.
A retired Navy explosives specialist who served multiple tours in Iraq and Syria, he said his team is “facing something we’ve never seen before.”
In the Navy, he said, his worst day involved finding 18 explosive devices. On Wednesday, on the outskirts of Mosul, his team cleared 50 explosive devices out of a pipeline. He estimated as many as 300 in that one area alone.
There are five such teams, totaling 130 people, working in Mosul. So far, no one has been injured. In Ramadi, however, company workers were killed and injured as they tried to eliminate explosives. Janus wouldn’t provide details.
Clearing Iraqi cities of explosives may take decades
Clearing Iraqi cities of explosives may take decades
US says it opposed Israeli strikes in Syria
“The United States did not support recent Israeli strikes,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
“We are engaging diplomatically with Israel and Syria at the highest levels, both to address the present crisis and reach a lasting agreement between the two sovereign states,” she said.
She declined to say if the United States had expressed its displeasure with Israel or whether it would oppose future strikes on Syria.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced concern when asked about the Israeli strikes, which included attacking the defense ministry in Damascus.
He later issued a statement that did not directly address the Israeli strikes but voiced broader concern about the violence.
Israel said it was intervening on behalf of the Druze community after communal clashes.
Israel has repeatedly been striking Syria, a historic adversary, since Islamist fighters in December overthrew Iranian-allied leader Bashar Assad.
US President Donald Trump, who spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday by telephone, has sided with Turkiye and Saudi Arabia in seeking a better relationship with Syria under its new leader, former guerrilla Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
Israel has refused to renew visas for heads of at least 3 UN agencies in Gaza
UNITED NATIONS: Israel has refused to renew visas for the heads of at least three United Nations agencies in Gaza, which the UN humanitarian chief blames on their work trying to protect Palestinian civilians in the war-torn territory.
Visas for the local leaders of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA; the human rights agency OHCHR; and the agency supporting Palestinians in Gaza, UNRWA, have not been renewed in recent months, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed.
Tom Fletcher, UN head of humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council on Wednesday that the UN’s humanitarian mandate is not just to provide aid to civilians in need and report what its staff witnesses but to advocate for international humanitarian law.
“Each time we report on what we see, we face threats of further reduced access to the civilians we are trying to serve,” he said. “Nowhere today is the tension between our advocacy mandate and delivering aid greater than in Gaza.”
Fletcher said, “Visas are not renewed or reduced in duration by Israel, explicitly in response to our work on protection of civilians.”
Israel’s UN mission did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment about the visa renewals. Israel has been sharply critical of UNRWA, even before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack in southern Israel — accusing the agency of colluding with Hamas and teaching anti-Israel hatred, which UNRWA vehemently denies.
Since then, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies have claimed that UNRWA is deeply infiltrated by Hamas and that its staffers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. Israel formally banned UNRWA from operating in its territory, and its commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, has been barred from entering Gaza.
At Wednesday’s Security Council meeting, Fletcher called conditions in Gaza “beyond vocabulary,” with food running out and Palestinians seeking something to eat being shot. He said Israel, the occupying power in Gaza, is failing in its obligation under the Geneva Conventions to provide for civilian needs.
In response, Israel accused OCHA of continuing “to abandon all semblance of neutrality and impartiality in its statements and actions, despite claiming otherwise.”
Reut Shapir Ben-Naftaly, political coordinator at Israel’s UN Mission, told the Security Council that some of its 15 members seem to forget that the Oct. 7 attacks killed about 1,200 people and some 250 were taken hostage, triggering the war in Gaza and the humanitarian situation.
“Instead, we’re presented with a narrative that forces Israel into a defendant’s chair, while Hamas, the very cause of this conflict and the very instigator of suffering of Israelis but also of Palestinians, goes unmentioned, unchallenged and immune to condemnation,” she said.
More than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half were women and children.
Ravina Shamdasani, chief spokesperson for the Geneva-based UN human rights body, confirmed Thursday that the head of its office in the occupied Palestinian territories “has been denied entry into Gaza.”
“The last time he tried to enter was in February 2025 and since then, he has been denied entry,” she told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately, this is not unusual. Aid workers, UN staff, journalists and others have been denied access to Gaza.”
Israel has accused a UN-backed commission probing abuses in Gaza, whose three members just resigned, and the Human Rights Council’s independent investigator Francesca Albanese of antisemitism.
Albanese has accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, which it and its ally the US vehemently deny. The Trump administration recently issued sanctions against Albanese.
Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief, told the Security Council that Israel also is not granting “security clearances” for staff to enter Gaza to continue their work and that UN humanitarian partners are increasingly being denied entry as well.
He noted that “56 percent of the entries denied into Gaza in 2025 were for emergency medical teams — frontline responders who save lives.”
“Hundreds of aid workers have been killed; and those who continue to work endure hunger, danger and loss, like everyone else in the Gaza Strip,” Fletcher said.
Mothers of Israeli soldiers fighting on all fronts to stop Gaza war
- Saidof said her movement brings together some 70,000 mothers of active-duty troops, conscripts and reservists
- Mothers on the Front’s foremost demand is that everyone serve in the army, as mandated by Israeli law
HOD HASHARON, Israel: “We mothers of soldiers haven’t slept in two years,” said Ayelet-Hashakhar Saidof, a lawyer who founded the Mothers on the Front movement in Israel.
A 48-year-old mother of three, including a soldier currently serving in the army, Saidof said her movement brings together some 70,000 mothers of active-duty troops, conscripts and reservists to demand, among other things, a halt to the fighting in Gaza.
Her anxiety was familiar to other mothers of soldiers interviewed by AFP who have refocused their lives on stopping a war that many Israelis increasingly feel has run its course, even as a ceasefire deal remains elusive.
In addition to urging an end to the fighting in Gaza, Mothers on the Front’s foremost demand is that everyone serve in the army, as mandated by Israeli law.
That request is particularly urgent today, as draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews have become a wedge issue in Israeli society, with the military facing manpower shortages in its 21-month fight against the militant group Hamas.
As the war drags on, Saidof has become increasingly concerned that Israel will be confronted with long-term ramifications from the conflict.
“We’re seeing 20-year-olds completely lost, broken, exhausted, coming back with psychological wounds that society doesn’t know how to treat,” she said.
“They are ticking time bombs on our streets, prone to violence, to outbursts of rage.”
According to the army, 23 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza over the past month, and more than 450 have died since the start of the ground offensive in October 2023.
Saidof accuses the army of neglecting soldiers’ lives.
Combat on the ground has largely dried up, she said, and soldiers were now being killed by improvised explosives and “operational mistakes.”
“So where are they sending them? Just to be targets in a shooting range?” she asked bitterly.
Over the past months, Saidof has conducted her campaign in the halls of Israel’s parliament, but also in the streets.
Opening the boot of her car, she proudly displayed a stockpile of posters, placards and megaphones for protests.
“Soldiers fall while the government stands,” one poster read.
Her campaign does not have a political slant, she maintained.
“The mothers of 2025 are strong. We’re not afraid of anyone, not the generals, not the rabbis, not the politicians,” she said defiantly.
Saidof’s group is not the only mothers’ movement calling for an end to the war.
Outside the home of military chief of staff Eyal Zamir, four women gathered one morning to demand better protection for their children.
“We’re here to ask him to safeguard the lives of our sons who we’ve entrusted to him,” said Rotem-Sivan Hoffman, a doctor and mother of two soldiers.
“To take responsibility for military decisions and to not let politicians use our children’s lives for political purposes that put them in unnecessary danger” .
Hoffman is one of the leaders of the Ima Era, or “Awakened Mother,” movement, whose motto is: “We don’t have children for wars without goals.”
“For many months now, we’ve felt this war should have ended,” she told AFP.
“After months of fighting and progress that wasn’t translated into a diplomatic process, nothing has been done to stop the war, bring back the hostages, withdraw the army from Gaza or reach any agreements.”
Beside her stood Orit Wolkin, also the mother of a soldier deployed to the front, whose anxiety was visible.
“Whenever he comes back from combat, of course that’s something I look forward to eagerly, something I’m happy about, but my heart holds back from feeling full joy because I know he’ll be going back” to the front, she said.
At the funeral of Yuli Faktor, a 19-year-old soldier killed in Gaza the previous day alongside two comrades, his mother stood sobbing before her son’s coffin draped in the Israeli flag.
She spoke to him in Russian for the last time before his burial.
“I want to hold you. I miss you. Forgive me, please. Watch over us, wherever you are.”
Foreign ministers of Middle Eastern countries affirm support for Syria’s security, stability, and sovereignty
- The foreign ministers welcomed Syrian president’s commitment to hold accountable all those responsible for violations against Syrian citizens in Sweida Governorate
RIYADH: The foreign ministers of Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, affirmed their support for Syria’s security, unity, stability, and sovereignty in a joint statement issued on Thursday.
The Kingdom’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his counterparts from Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkiye held intensive talks on developments in Syria during the last two days.
The talks aimed to come up with a unified position and coordinate efforts to support the Syrian government in its efforts to rebuild Syria on foundations that guarantee its security, stability, unity, sovereignty, and the rights of all its citizens.
The foreign ministers welcomed the ceasefire reached to end the crisis in Sweida Governorate, and stressed the necessity of its implementation to protect Syria, its unity, and its citizens, prevent the shedding of Syrian blood, and ensure the protection of civilians and the rule of law.
They also welcomed Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s commitment to hold accountable all those responsible for violations against Syrian citizens in Sweida Governorate.
The ministers expressed support for all efforts to establish security and the rule of law in Sweida Governorate and throughout Syria.
They also condemned and rejected repeated Israeli attacks on Syria and said they are flagrant violations of international law and a blatant assault on Syria’s sovereignty which destabilizes its security, stability, and unity and undermines the government’s efforts to build a new Syria that achieves the aspirations and choices of its people.
They added that Syria’s security and stability are a pillar of regional security and stability and a shared priority.
The ministers called on the international community to support the Syrian government in its reconstruction process and called on the Security Council to assume its legal and moral responsibilities to ensure Israel’s full withdrawal from occupied Syrian territories, the cessation of all Israeli hostilities against Syria and interference in its affairs, and the implementation of Resolution 2766 and the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
UK MP Jeremy Corbyn announces ‘independent Gaza tribunal’
- Veteran left-wing politician says inquiry will take place in September and probe British involvement in Israel’s military campaign
- Corbyn previously failed to get support in parliament for an official public inquiry
LONDON: British MP Jeremy Corbyn has announced an independent “Gaza tribunal” to investigate the UK’s involvement in Israel’s military operation in the territory.
The former Labour Party leader, who now sits in parliament as an independent, has been one of the most prominent voices in the UK against Israel’s war.
He previously called for the government to set up an inquiry into British involvement in the conflict, but his bill was rejected at its second reading earlier this month.
Corbyn said on Thursday he would hold a Gaza tribunal in September because “the public deserves to know the full scale of their government’s complicity in genocide.
“Just like Iraq, the government is doing everything it can to protect itself from scrutiny,” he said, referring to the UK’s ill-fated decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Just like Iraq, it will not succeed in its attempts to suffocate the truth.”
The left-wing politician added: “We will bring about justice for the people of Palestine.”
The UK suspended 30 arms export licenses to Israel in September last year in response to its Gaza operations.
But Corbyn and pressure groups say the UK is still supplying other weapons, including parts for F-35 fighter jets.
The Royal Air Force is also accused of flying surveillance flights over Gaza and supplying Israel with intelligence.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the International Development Committee on Wednesday that he was “very certain” no weapons were being used against civilians and aid workers in Gaza.
Corbyn said the tribunal would hear from expert witnesses including Palestinians in Gaza, journalists, and health and aid workers who have worked in the territory.
Legal experts and UN officials will also be called upon to provide evidence.
The tribunal will begin by outlining the scale of human suffering in Gaza, where more than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023.
It will go on to outline Britain’s legal responsibilities under domestic and international law, and then probe Britain’s role in the campaign.
The British government has come under increasing pressure from MPs, including many from its own Labour Party, to take a tougher line against Israel.
Last week, almost 60 Labour MPs sent a letter to Lammy demanding the UK immediately recognize Palestine as a state.
